The hunks of Washington

Washington is a magical place, a place where the onetime victims of boyhood gym-locker entombment can grow up to become the objects of affection, admiration, compulsive fandom, BlogSpot pages and Cafe Press T-shirts.

It is, safe to say, the only place where Ari Fleischer could have a stalker.

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The haters call Washington “Hollywood for ugly people,” but they’ve got it all wrong. Ugly is in the eye of the beholder, and the beholders inside the Beltway see beauty where others might miss it.

Beauty, says Tammy Haddad, is “the people who make things work in our town because they’re able to move and motivate masses of people, which is really extraordinary.”

“They are powerful, dependable and completely engaged in your conversation with them, which is, in any world and any time, the most charming thing in the world.”

Let the rest of the world have its Brad Pitt. D.C. knows who the real dreamboats are:

Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget

Nothing gets the ladies here blushing like a guy talking Medicare service utilization patterns in a nasally countertenor.

So it goes for Orszag, President Barack Obama’s compulsively caffeinated, double-BlackBerry-wearing, bespectacled budget guru. At 40, the Boston-born Orszag is Obama’s youngest Cabinet member. He’s got the perfect WASP résumé (East Coast boarding school, Princeton undergrad, London School of Economics doctorate) as well as a little bit of a country twist: Orszag is known to wear cowboy boots and once quoted Toby Keith in congressional testimony. But that’s not what matters to some Beltway fans. Said one political journo: “He’s so numbersy.”

Grover Norquist, anti-tax crusader

He may be the man many love to hate, but this notorious anti-tax lobbyist is so engaging — with a lightning-quick wit and overwhelming self-confidence — that even his dissenters often find it impossible to pull away. He’s had the ear of Washington’s most conservative elite for years, with contacts including key White House residents and, yes, convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

“Grover is deadly serious about his mission, and he wraps it in humor. ... The man is on fire,” said former Consumer Electronics Association Chairwoman Kathy Gornik. “He is like a supertank. This man is unyielding in his vision, in his mission, and he takes you along for the ride.”

Christopher Hitchens, author and Vanity Fair columnist

There’s just something about that British accent. And few folks wield it like Washington’s resident bad boy — the chain-smoking, whiskey-drinking, God-denying, Iraq-war-supporting Hitchens.

New Yorker writer Ian Frazier once described Hitchens as “looking like someone who, with as much dignity as possible, has smoothed his hair and straightened his collar after knocking the helmet off a policeman.” While Hitch has often waxed about his own baby blues, it’s safe to assume his appeal is more rhetorical than physical.

A local publicist coos: “Hitchens is a brilliant visual writer with a charming sarcasm I adore. He seems like the ideal date to a wedding (or gala) — we’d quietly snark about every last gaudy detail and guest and yet captivate the room at the same time.”

Chuck Todd, NBC White House correspondent

Justin Timberlake may have brought sexy back, but Chuckie T brought the goatee back — which is undoubtedly more of a challenge. The man Howard Kurtz described as the prototypical “brainy guy poring over computer printouts” is known for his sharp instincts and his knack for cutting to the chase.